February's Retreat

After at least two posts with no pictures I may totally overwhelm you with the tons of pictures in this post. Way back at the end of February my friend Kathy and I hosted our 7th annual (or maybe it's our 8th?) retreat at the girl scout camp at Mitre Peak. One of the reasons we love to go there year after year is the beauty of the west Texas mountains . . . .

And sunsets - even though this picture is beautiful, I couldn't get my picture to look anything like the sunset that night no matter how many pictures I took. It was really breathtaking. Lot's of purples, pinks. This picture is showing too much blue and there really wasn't much blue like that in the sky. . . .

and wild life that walks by the windows of our workroom. This year it was only turkeys.

There was a family of wild turkeys that came by at least once a day. We counted a minimum (they were always moving and you didn't know if you counted one twice or not) of twenty turkeys. One large tom turkey kept heard on all the others not letting them come close to us even though you could tell that that wanted to, especially after we threw out some bread for them. They didn't get it that day, but it wasn't there the next day so somebody feasted that night. See him in the picture below keeping watch? He really was a large bird.

This year was Kathy's turn to teach and she taught a scrappy, scrappy Jacob's ladder quilt. Below is a picture of my mother's quilt. It was the only one I had on my camera even though I thought I took pictures of more quilts. If you look closely you will notice the lovely blue painter's tape. One of the bad things about this camp is that you can't put up any flannel backed tablecloths so we have learned that you can put up each individual block with painter's tape and if you are really good, like my mom was below, you can see what your quilt might look like all sewn together. I love the color combination in her blocks. It has a warm inviting feel to it.

I didn't work on that quilt this weekend because I wanted to try out a new pattern. Over the last couple of years, this retreat has kind of been my time to work on new patterns. The quilt I am teaching at Ogallala in a couple of weeks was made at our retreat last year. I have just finished writing the pattern for it and can't wait to introduce it to everyone.
This year, I was working on my mess up of a version of a quilt I saw on the blogs. However, I liked my mess up; so I played with it at this retreat. I am not totally satisfied with the way it looks yet so this is not the end of this quilt top. I haven't had a chance to play around with it since I have been home, so stay tuned on this one. It may be something totally different when I am done with it. Below are two settings for the blocks and then a lot of them up on the wall just to see what it will look like.

That fabric, (can't remember the name of it - let me get back to you on that one) has a lot of pattern and it definitely overwhelms these blocks. The may need to be sashed and that is one thing I am going to look at when I get the chance to put them on the wall here at the house.

Okay, I have had a rough time getting my pictures to do what I want them to do - (note to self: next time just download one picture at a time so it will be easier to move them around.) and it has gotten past my bed time so I will leave you with the last of the "wild" life I saw when I was leaving the camp to return home. I just had to stop and take pictures since they were almost close enough to reach out and pet. They were a little annoyed that I stopped my car, rolled down my window and took their picture. However, it was nice of them to all look into the camera and say cheese.



However, he was not really happy that I was disturbing his Sunday lunch and a chat up with the ladies. Look at the frown on his face!

Cherry Cream Coke!!

Another two weeks have gone by without a post from me. I have got to get better. I come up here - my computer is on the second floor - with the intentions of blogging and then get sucked in by the games! OOOOHHHHHH the games!!!! Tonight, I can't play the games until I blog. (my rule tonight) so, here is today's blog posting.

Those of you that know me, know that I am a frequent visitor to Dairy Queen during their 1/2 price drink happy hour(s). I love - okay, that little bitty "love" just doesn't cut it. Let me try again I *****L O V E ***** (better) me some cherry lime diet coke. It took awhile before they could get it right every time I ordered, but after a couple of years, the oldies already know what I am going to order. Some days when the line outside is way to long, I will go inside to get my "fix" and the drive thru window girl will look up, see me come in the store, make my drink and have it ready for the counter girl before I even order. That is how dedicated - I mean addicted - to the DQ cherry lime diet cokes I am. Anyway, getting back to today, I left school and made my way to my favorite DQ (hello grandview DQ) and there is a tremendous line. I am car number 8 from the speaker and after sitting there for three minutes and not moving - I and 4 other cars (6, 7 and 9) are on the street - I decide that I will go to Target, get some stuff and head back later for my drink. Didn't happen. I spent so much time (and money) in Target that it was way after 5 and the drink specials are over. Even though I love my drink, I am not always willing to pay the big bucks to get it.

Okay, fine, I will go home, eat leftovers and drink water. It's better for me and I really need to start drinking more of it. I come out from Target heading home and realize I am close to Weinerschnitzel. Right then I decide that I had leftovers for lunch and I want a corndog. You know what goes well with corn dogs? Well done onion rings from Sonic. Still planning on drinking water I decide that if I am going to eat all this bad for me food, I might as well order a cherry coke - I don't like their cherry lime diet cokes - and the order taker asks if I want cream with that. WHAT!! I grew up drinking cherry cream cokes. When I first moved to Odessa, nobody - I mean NOBODY - even knew how to make a cherry cream coke. When I would order it, they would just say, "What?" Like they had never heard of them before. "What?" I got tired of hearing that so I would just order a cherry coke and a small ice cream cone and mix my own drink. (that was how Mr. Burger used to make them - with real ice cream, yum) I grew weary of having to mix my own,(plus if you don't drink down enough coke before adding just a bit of the ice cream, you will have a nice foamy mess in your car)so then I taught the people at Walter's how to make them for me. Those workers all quit or weren't at work when I would go by to get a drink and I was stuck either mixing my own or going without. I went without. UNTIL TODAY!! I am sitting here with my cherry cream coke, remembering the good old days of riding my bike to the Dairy Mart in Idalou, Texas on a hot summer day and drinking a delicious cherry cream coke.

Now if I could just make it upstairs with my camera next time so I can download pictures of my retreat and classes with Gwen Marston. Look for that in upcoming blog posts I will try to make it sooner than two weeks.

Cycles go round and round and sometimes straight

I know it has been forever since I have added anything here. I have hosted a quilt retreat, am getting ready to head out to a couple of quilt classes by one of my favorite quilt makers ever and I am trying to get my life cleaned up, picked up, straightened up and back together again. Sometimes it is just too much and all I can do is just one thing at a time.

Speaking of straightening up, I guess I really need to do that because I have been catching myself straightening things everywhere I go. The notebook on the front desk at school - just perfectly in line with the edge of the desk. The staplers and tape dispenser on my desk at school, just touching the desk calendar with the 3 hole hole punch just touching on the other side. The boxes of cake mix today at the store. The library books lined up along the edge of the shelf just perfectly straight and even. Then I come home to chaos!! I don't won't to line anything up. Or else I am totally overwhelmed with everything that needs straightening, cleaning and picking up.

My Intuition is not working right now

Now to make this section squared off I am adding one more piece and then I think I am finished. I need to make this one fit in on the angle with the top piece. So that means more grabbing and sewing. There, got it now to see what size it needs to be

Boo Hiss!! It is way too long and I don't think it is square at all. I thought I squared it up correctly. Maybe the other side isn't square? That is a possibility. However, here is the question of the day: "Do I want to add more to the right hand side or do I just cut off the majority of the bottom of the left side?" Another question is: "Is this the same size as the top part or do I need to take a bit off the side? If I take some off the side, then which side do I take it from? Do I just need to add some to the top if this is too big?"

HEADACHE!!! I have looked at it, added a pink strip between the two sections since I think one of them is not exactly square and I have measured the top part. It is smaller than this bottom part. The good thing is that I didn't put a black/white strip on the right hand side of the top part and can add on there if I want. The bad news is, that I am not going to get this done this weekend since it is wider than it is long and I will definitely have to add some to the bottom right side to get it at least as long as it is wide, if not longer. So, back to the sewing machine.

In the meantime, while I was contemplating this quilt, I made a few blocks for the dot, stripe, plaid request from Victoria. Here are a couple of the blocks I will be sending on to her for the donation quilt. Wait, those aren't correct. I have since slashed across the larger one, it was looking like two halves just sewn together, and added in a different corner piece. I have also made another block this morning as a delaying tactic to working on the Intuition quilt.

Last section

I just posted over at 15 minutes play about the latest section of my intuition quilt. Go over there and enjoy what I have to say about it. I would have had the pics up and blogged about last night, but the camera and my computer would not get along! Sometimes they can be soooo very persnickety.

The 4th Quadrant

I think I am going to combine the 3rd and 4th quadrant into one large section OR I may call this one the third quadrant and make the 4th quadrant a bit smaller in width. Anyway, here is what is on my design wall as of 10:15 Monday night. A little late, but better late than not at all. If you want more Design Wall Monday postings go to Judy's blog here. If you want more information about this quilt then stay with me a little bit longer. This section is part of the bottom half of my intuition quilt with 15 minutes of play blog. I should have been taking pictures of this as I worked on each part of this section, but my camera was in the other room and I would put it up on the wall, then make a decision, take it down and sew it, put it up, etc., etc. All while watching tonight's Castle (can I just say, Nathan Fillion, yum!) So, I spent a bit more than the "15 minutes", but I got this entire section put together and am pleased with the results. Now, to measure the top half and see how much more I need to go to get this whole top put together. However, now it is past my bedtime and I must get off here and go to sleep. More on this later.

February's Le Petite Challenge

This is my version of the newest Le Petite challenge, "Sweet Spot." I know, it's early. I know, I can't believe it either. Last month's challenge I finished late on the 31st. This month, it is the 12th and I am already done. What the heck? Here's the deal. I haven't worked on any other quilting project since I began pulling fabrics and cutting on the 5th and every time I made it up to the studio to sew, I worked on this quilt. Nothing else. No Intuition quilt, no blocks for others, nothing. Now, I don't want you to think that I have eaten, slept and breathed this top, because, that is not the case, but I was totally focused - in the studio - on getting this one done before the deadline. I might even have it quilted - hahaha - okay, now I am lying to myself about that - I should say that I would like to have it quilted and bound before the end of the month, but I would also like to finish up the intuition quilt and move on to the monochromatic challenge. Oh, yes, there is also a little thing called retreat and working on my newest quilt pattern. and, and, and . . . Anyway, back to this quilt. When the newest le petite pattern was posted on Pink Pincushion, I really liked it. I knew I wanted to do something modern, but also a little different from the pattern. I pulled out some Kona gray and 9 fabrics that have a more modern feel to them. I drew out the pattern on a graphing index card, figured out what size I wanted the blocks to be and started in almost immediately. I made one block to test out my plan and then it was off to the races. For some reason, I ended up with 10 star blocks. How did that happen? I only pulled 9 fabrics, didn't I? Oh, yes, that test block. I guess I pulled an extra one for that, but since it goes with the others and since I don't know what I am going to do with the back, I wanted to use all the blocks on the front. That is where this whole thing took a turn for the "different". I only added double borders on two sides along with the one block cornerstone. I thought it was finished, but then I decided it needed to be set with a final gray border. I sewed a 2 1/2" strip along the border sides and a 4 1/2" strips along the non border sides. Perfectiono!(she says, kissing her fingertips on her right hand and then waving her hand in the air) I really like how it looks.

Okay, I said that I hadn't been totally engrossed in making this top, I also have been keeping up with some of the blogs and one of them, 15 Minutes Play, had a posting about disappearing 4 patches. I read that posting, went to the makers blog and read that posting and still don't understand how to cut the blocks. That didn't stop me, though. I sewed 4 - 4 1/2" squares together into a 4 patch. Then I cut 1 inch to the right of the middle seam, turned it a quarter turn and cut 1 inch away from that seam. That looks nothing like - wait, one block looks like it may be part of the what I want - Nope. Can't figure it out. So, I took my pieces, turned a couple of them around and swapped them, sewed them all back together and voila! (another kissing hand thingy) here is my version of the disappearing 4 patch block.


That worked, now let's make another one and see what we have - Crash!! I just knocked off the drawer that holds my keyboard. I have done that before, but this time, I also took out the side support. I am not sure that this can be fixed. Back to the quilt blocks holding my keyboard in my lap. Here is two of them together. This doesn't look anything like the wonkiness of the other one, but I think it has potential, "we believe in you" sorry, flashing to Pretty Woman.

Ahh, I have gone back to the site and discovered that she cut one inch on both sides of each of those seams. Leaving, for the most part the middle section together. I am going to just have to ask her for a pictorial tutorial on exactly how she made them wonky. Or, I may have to sew some more blocks together and try it for myself.